Reviews tagging 'Gore'

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

2 reviews

maziodynes's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This was honestly one of the most thought provoking books I've ever read. 

Yes, it's meandering with an incredibly unreliable narrator. The pacing is challenging, and sometimes even frustrating. But the way every character and notable item is symbolic, representative of a deeply human feeling or a time in history - it's something that feels magical. It's a fantastical multi-generational story rooted in hard historical truths, and that's no easy task. 

I'll be thinking about Saleem's story for a long, long time. And I'll never look at pickles the same way again!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Grief, Infidelity, Pregnancy, Murder, Infertility, Classism, War, and Torture

Moderate: Gore, Incest, Abandonment, Injury/Injury detail, Addiction, Suicide, Kidnapping, Miscarriage, Religious bigotry, and Mass/school shootings

Minor: Dementia and Police brutality

notthatcosta's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

I kinda went all over the place with this one - I was dreading starting it because it's so damn long (the longest book I've read, in fact) and to be honest I remain unconvinced that this book (or any book for that matter) has any right being over 600 pages.

I tend to struggle with first person narration at the best of times, but when it's this indulgent, tangiential and scattered as this it became a slog to try and follow the plot. With a story as expansive, there were also a lot of characters (many having multiple names) which also made it hard to know which threads to pay attention to. Even our narrator often switched how he referred to himself...

While I would say Gabriel García Márquez's 100 Years of Solitude is a far better execution of a similar story (and even provided a graphic to help you follow the family tree), I really enjoyed book 2 because of its focus on the family and its dysfunction, which is always a winner for me in a novel. When it was meandering preamble about ancestors who you don't get much time with or our antihero being kind of awful, I was less invested.

On the positive side, it has a great premise and most of the plot is pretty riveting despite the execution being spotty. I can see why it's so beloved, because it's a remarkable work of fiction despite my critiques. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Murder, Animal cruelty, Religious bigotry, Classism, Colonisation, Medical trauma, Racial slurs, Police brutality, Blood, Death, Death of parent, Genocide, Incest, Islamophobia, Physical abuse, Body horror, Pregnancy, Racism, Child abuse, Forced institutionalization, Mass/school shootings, Misogyny, Grief, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Gore, Mental illness, Rape, Toxic relationship, Violence, and War